The Blood Wards
by Khelc-sul Renai
Summary: The Blood Wards on Harry did more than just protect Harry from Voldemort, and saved his life from many people even before he left for Hogwarts.
1. Wormtail

**Peter "Wormtail"**

All the houses on the street looked identical—just the same as all the houses on the next street over, and the one before that, and the one before _that_, and all the houses in the entire area. Peter only knew he was in the right place because he had followed that dreadful Petunia home two weeks before when the Dark Lord demanded he find the location of anyone and everyone related to Potter and Evans (_James _and _Lily_, whispered something unacknowledged in his mind) so he could wipe them out after he took care of the first three.

For some reason his Lord had disappeared that night and the Potter boy (_Harry) _had lived (_Thank Merlin they aren't all dead_). Peter may not know what was going on, but he knew the Dark Lord wanted the Potter boy the muggle filth had in their house dead. He'd already gotten rid of one of the most annoying (_loyal) _and persistent (_dedicated_) Aurors against the cause when he framed Sirius two days ago. (_Traitor! Padfoot, I'm sorry, I'm scared!_) If he managed to kill the boy and the people in the house he'd be in the inner circle when his Lord came back! (_Please don't be back._)

Peter scurried forward, only to run nose first into a solid wall that hadn't been there before. What? He couldn't see anything in front of him… Twitching his whiskers, he slowly moved forward only to again to encounter a solid invisible _something_. A ward! It had to be. That was fine. A ward was a charm. Charms were the only thing he'd ever been good at. Given enough time he could find a way around it, or a way to remove it. He just needed—movement! A CAT!

After he escaped the cat attempting to eat him, Peter decided on a change of plans. (_Thank Merlin._) It was too dangerous to stay out here now—besides the Dark Lord would probably want the pleasure of killing the brat himself. Instead Peter would find a wizarding family to live with, watch the news for his Lord's return and give him the location then. (_Or maybe he'll—accidently—forget. The houses were all so similar here anyway.)_


	2. Death Eater Group

**Death Eater Group**

"What is taking you so long, Crouch?" hissed Bellatrix Lestrange at the youngest member of the group.

"I don't know!" Barty Crouch Jr. wailed, staring helplessly at his wand. "That spell should have worked!"

"Oh, for fucks sake," Rabastan Lestrange snarled, pulling out his own wand. "How hard can it be to find one brat our Lord marked for death? Infallibiliter reperio Harry Potter." Then Rabastan too was staring at his wand. "Infallibiliter reperio Harry Potter." A pause. "That can't be right—I'm not getting anything. There's no way to block that spell! Even with the Fidelius it gives a general direction!"

"Except Blood Wards" reminded Barty.

"Don't be ridiculous," scoffed one of the other Death Eaters, identity lost to the shadows. "An oh-so-pure light wizard like Dumbledore wouldn't dare mess with something so close to 'dark' magic as blood magic."

"Then if we can't find the boy, our Lord must have succeeded." Bellatrix crowed. "We must find him when he comes to break these stupid mudbloods and blood traitors of their illusions."

"This might even be a test of our loyalty, " spoke another shadow, "So who might know where the Dark Lord is now?"

"The Longbottoms" Barty said, "They're always informed of everything, since the two blood traitors are on the force."

"Infallibiliter reperio Longbottom" Rabastan surveyed t hose around him, making sure they were all ready. "I've got the location, let's go."

Note: Infallibiliter reperio is supposed to be a butchered version of the Latin for "inevitably find".


	3. Rockwood

**Rockwood**

"Curse that coward." Rockwood had gotten only a minute's warning before the ministry came for him. "Our Lord will destroy him for his cowardice when he returns!"

Rockwood hadn't had any plans when he ran from his home with the ministry on his tail, but he certainly had plans now. The Potter brat was his Lord's downfall, so he's go and grab the brat and get his revenge on him, and then try to search out his Lord. It wouldn't take long; he'd learned the boy's location as an Unspeakable, before Karkaroff unveiled him.

'I know the counters to the wards the ministry put up. Just need to get past anything the meddling old teacher added.' A couple of quick spells, and only the one from the meddler was left. This one was proving more difficult than the others and was taking too much time…

**Pop** **Pop** **Pop**

Rockwood cursed and spun, to see the line of Aurors in front of him—

**Pop!**

-And Dumbledore behind him. "Damn, there has GOT to be a way out!"

Rockwood was caught within fifteen minutes.


	4. Malfoys

**Malfoys**

'Damn that boy's not even here and his popularity keeps growing' Lucius Malfoy's arms shook as he stared down at the Daily Prophet. Across the top, in large letters, it proclaimed" "Boy-Who-Lived's Birthday: What Are You Doing to Celebrate?" '**CELEBRATE**? For the boy who was my master's downfall? Who destroyed my plans for the future and made ME hide my allegiance—who humiliated me and made ME stand trial in front of the Wizengamot for things that should not even be crimes! Forced ME claim to be unable to resist the Imperius Curse!' Malfoy sneered. 'Hell, if the brat was old enough, he'd be a major political power, easily able to overshadow the Malfoy's ancient influence. There was nothing to celebrate about the day getting closer!'

"I'd rather celebrate his death!" His death… Now there was an idea. He could kill the boy… No, death curses were too easily traced back to the caster. But there were plenty of equally powerful curses aimed to incapacitate or irreversibly damage that could not be traced back to the caster, that would equally negate the Boy-Who-Lived's influence. In fact, he knew that his library had some dark curses that could get past almost any wards—any light ward, most dark wards, in fact any ward not anchored in blood. The Potters were too Gryffindor to use that sort of ward, and there were no blood relatives left to give the boy those wards.

How was he going to celebrate the Boy-Who-Lived's birthday? He was going to send the boy a gift of curses. And, Lucius Malfoy got up from the table and headed to his office, he was going to send them now.


	5. Lockhart

**Lockhart**

Gilderoy Lockhart made fame look easy. The public always saw him smiling, impeccably dressed, and holding his newest published book. The public thought he was always up to another heroic act, or writing his next book about one of his adventures. They were partially right—he was often working on writing a book—but they were mostly wrong—not a single one of the heroic deeds he claimed were actually his.

While he may only admit it to himself, Lockhart knew he was a coward, and his ability, strength and speed of spellwork just were not good enough for him to survive doing what he'd claimed to do. But he could not just make things up—it was too easy to check the existence of monsters at certain places and times for him to do that. No, what he spent the most time doing was research, trying to find situations he could exploit before they could become generally known. But it seemed like no one had been quietly doing heroic deeds lately…

Which lead to his present situation. What fascinated wizards and witches just as much as dangerous adventures with a handsome hero? The baby hero who saved them all, Harry Potter. If Gilderoy could get his name attached to the Boy-Who-Lived, he'd be set for life. Especially since the Wizarding World had rarely even seen their hero in seven years—Dedalus Diggle was the talk of England for weeks and got a heavy commission from the Daily Prophet for his story, when he managed to bow and greet the Boy-Who-Lived while shopping for groceries.

Gilderoy couldn't just greet Harry Potter, of course, but spending the day would work, especially if he could be the first to show the boy the sights of the Wizarding World. While the eight year old would undoubtedly be curious enough about his parents' world that Gilderoy would easily be able to get him to come, no vaguely responsible guardian would let their charge go with a stranger alone, just on the stranger's say-so and the Ministry was sure to have wards on the house to alert them if a wizard snooped around for too long.

Luckily, he had the perfect solution for that—Memory charms. He'd created enough memories of days, weeks, and in one case—months of actions and interactions that a couple of weeks of "getting to know, be charmed by, and coming to trust" memories would be a cinch! He would just need to remove some memories of them sitting at home without visitors first, to place the created memories in.

So, Gilderoy used the stories of those who had seen the Boy-Who-Lived to track down his family. He was a bit surprised by what little he saw—Harry Potter's uncle was a whale—but said Uncle was, luckily, sleeping outside when Gilderoy arrived. He grabbed the chance.

"Obliviate!"

One meter from the whale's head, the spell fizzled out and died. Gilderoy Lockhart stared, shocked, and then tried again. When that spell also died, he started to worry, and sent a quick barrage of obscure, easily reversible spells—and they all died the same distance away. He'd never heard of a ward that acted like this—he certainly was not able to deal with it, and the ward might be monitored and its flares noticed. He needed to get out of there before it was too late and instead try something else.

He'd heard mutters about a werewolf two days back—maybe he should look into that.


	6. Muggle Thug

**General Mugger (Muggle Thug)**

Most parents do not allow young children to walk around a town on their own. But the adult Dursleys were not normal parents, Harry Potter was not a normal six-year-old, and besides, Little Whinging was a safe enough town. So when Dudley Dursley decided that the little neighborhood park was boring and that he wanted ice cream **NOW**, Petunia Dursley just told her nephew to get home before dark, and took her son off to get ice cream at the local ice cream parlor.

Little Harry was overjoyed—Dudley had been hogging the slide since they came to the park right after supper, only coming off long enough to kick over the castle Harry had been working on in the sandbox.

Now Harry could repair what little he'd saved of his castle without worrying it would be kicked over, and then he could play on the slide for as long as he wanted!

It was dusk by the time Harry started to head for the house on Privet Drive. He was only a little nervous-he'd walked home from the park many times, but this would be the first time he would have to brave the dark, scary alley between the park and home on his own. Maybe he should go around? No, by then it would be fully dark when he got back and Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon would be mad. Only the threat of his guardians' anger prompted Harry to start creeping into the alley, head full of the stories Dudley told him about monsters that came out of darkness to eat people. It was okay, there's nothing there, he was brave, there's noth—Did that shadow _move_?

Harry bolted, terrified and determined to get back to the safety of his cupboard.

* * *

Henry Rutherford thought he was finally getting a bit of good luck when he saw the little kid headed for the alley he was standing in. The kid's clothes didn't fit him perfectly—they were slightly too big—and had obviously been worn for a while, but the kid acted like he knew where he was going, and obviously had wasn't tired enough to have gone far, so he lived in the area. To live in the area, the family had to have a decent amount of money, and parents inevitably freaked out when their "darling angels" disappeared. The kid looked about 4 or 5, he would be easy to take and ransom.

Henry waited until the kid was about equal with him before lunging forward; only to crack his hands (and immediately after, his head) against something solid about a foot away from the kid. His meal ticket took off and Henry jumped forward again, only to reel back after hitting _something_ rock solid, again just about a foot away.

When they reached the edge of the alley, the kid continued running, while Henry stayed behind. If the bruises had not already been forming, Henry wouldn't have believed that the past minute had actually happened.


End file.
